In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled
the temple. Seraphs were in attendance
above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two
they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”
The pivots of the threshold shook at the
voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a
man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphs flew to me,
holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of
tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with
it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and
your sin is blotted out.” Then I heard
the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
I discovered something disturbing
about myself this week: I overuse the
word “awesome.”
I went back through my emails,
facebook messages, and text messages, and discovered that when people shared
something with me, I responded no fewer than 27 times in the last week alone
that the news in question was, in fact, “awesome.” Here are just some of the things I said were
“awesome” in the past week: someone finding a lost book, weight loss, a new
shirt, an omelette, a new job, a kitchen remodel, an oil change, a golf shot,
and the grocery store having a particular item in stock. All this evidence leads me to believe that I
may, in fact, overuse the word “awesome” just
slightly.
What does the word really
mean? Overused in the vernacular to
designate that which is good, great, wonderful, fantastic; or an alternate
tongue-in-cheek sarcastic usage that roughly means “lame” such as “This pizza
is awesome” when the pizza in question comes from the airport food court. If you haven’t noticed lately, according to
us, anyway, everything is awesome!
How far this common usage strays
from the most appropriate use of the word “awesome.” The most appropriate place for the word
“awesome” is at the top of the heap, on the pinnacle of pinnacles, the
superlatives of superlatives - a word we should perhaps hold in reserve for the
One who sits upon the throne of thrones who is the King of kings and the Lord
of lords. May we pray.
Language matters
I love words. I have always loved words and what they can
do. As speakers of the English language,
we have an ever-growing number of words at our disposal. Does anyone have any idea how many words
there are in the English language? The
Global Language Monitor estimates that as of January 1 of this year, the
English language had 1,013,913 words, compared with about 500,000 just 60 years
ago. English is a fluid, flexible
language where new words are introduced all the time, and not just by
politicians! If you hunt hard enough,
you should be able to find just the right word for the occasion, and if you
can’t, make one up.
Even so, with so many linguistic
options just waiting to be exercised, how often do our words come up short? Nowhere is this more evident than in our
attempts to describe and define God.
Indeed, how can the infinite mysteries of God be described by something
so finite as language? Nevertheless, we
have one word that stands out from the others as an excellent starting place,
and that word is “holy.”
Holy
In today’s text, it is the word
used by the six-winged seraphs who are flying around the throne of God, who are
calling to each other with these words in verse 3: “Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full
of his glory.”
“Holy” is a word that means
“having divine origin or character,” but what you may not know is that simply
the number of times the word is used means something. The repetition of words was a way of denoting
the intensity of the thing is ratcheted up.
Saying it twice, “Holy, holy,” is like “holier,” and “Holy, holy, holy”
is like “holiest.” In essence, it means
God is the ultimate in holy, that nothing or no one is holier than God, that
holiness is just exploding out of God, that when it comes to holiness, God is
it. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God
Almighty.”
There’s another clue in the text
about just how holy God is. When God is
seated on the throne, verse 1 says, “the hem of his robe filled the temple.” The temple was a large, grand, impressive
building. It represented the pinnacle of
human engineering ability. And, in this
grandeur, just the hem of God’s robe completely filled the space, meaning that
the bigness and holiness of God completely dwarfs any of our human
accomplishments.
Called into ministry
The whole of today’s text from the
6th Chapter of Isaiah is commonly referred to as “the call of Isaiah,” because
he comes face-to-face with the glory, the splendor, the awesomeness, the holiness
of God, and the direction of his life is forever changed. So it was with Isaiah, and so it is with
us. God is counting on you to represent
God’s healing, holiness, and love to a broken, hurting, and hate-filled
world. In verse 8, God asks, “Whom shall
I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah responds, “Here am I; send
me.” What we need to know is God is
still asking the same question - “Whom shall I send?” and the answer given by
faithful people who have had an encounter with the holiness of God is still the
same: “Here am I; send me.”
It begs the question of each of us
– where have we encountered the holiness of God? And what I posit for your consideration this
morning is this: there is a difference between the sacred and the holy. Encounters with the sacred are fairly common,
but encounters with the holy are much rarer.
Now, perhaps you’re a bit confused
right now, thinking, “What is he talking about – the difference between
‘sacred’ and ‘holy?’ I always thought
they were the same thing!” We use the
terms ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ interchangeably, and even their dictionary
definitions are almost identical, so what am I talking about when I say that
‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ are not quite the same thing? The difference is subtle, but that subtle difference
has a world of meaning, and it is this: God determines what is holy; humans
determine what is sacred. God creates
holy; humans create sacred. Holy comes
from the hand of God; sacred comes from the hand of humans. Sacred is linked to the creation; holy is
linked to the Creator.
We are infinitely more comfortable
talking about and dealing with sacred things than we are with encountering holy
things because we fashion and determine what is sacred, and we have no say in
what is holy.
Think of the things that are
referred to as sacred in the life of the Church: sacred music, sacred art,
sacred literature, sacred architecture, sacred buildings, sacred customs,
sacred traditions, sacred symbols. Every
one of these – things of our own making.
Then, think of what is holy: Holy Savior, Holy Spirit, Holy Father, Holy
Redeemer, Holy God, Holy relationships.
All of these things – outside our own control or making.
To carry the contrast further, it
may observed that contact with the sacred and the holy evoke quite different
human reactions. Contact with the sacred
may provoke such varied feelings as reverence, veneration, superstition,
boredom, or even revulsion. How
different this is from what happens with contact with the holy: bewilderment,
unbelief, inner turmoil, a sense of unworthiness.
The things which are sacred are
intended as a gateway to the holy. This
6th Chapter of Isaiah is set in the temple – a sacred space – where
Isaiah had a vision of the holy God.
That which is sacred is never intended as a means unto itself, and yet
how often we people of faith become so focused on the things that are sacred to
us, we forget to look past them to glimpse the holy beyond.
The people in Isaiah’s day and
indeed in ours can sometimes have such a reverential and possesive protection
for that which is sacred – our building, our music, our customs, our traditions
– that we don’t even bother to look for or discern the holy. Many times our reverence for the sacred keeps
us from experiencing the holy.
For people of Christian faith,
that which is holy always takes priority over that which is sacred. I wonder what would happen if we would focus
the time and energy toward experiencing the holy that we often spend trying to
protect and preserve the sacred? Who knows,
we might end up slaughtering some sacred cows and making some mighty tasty
burgers in the process!
And here’s a secret – God’s not
that interested in the sacred. Even the
sacred space of the temple where Isaiah had his vision – did you know that God
never really wanted that temple? Recall
the story back in 1 Chronicles 17, where King David has built his palace and
realizes that he is set up in a nicer pad than God, and decides to build God a
suitable temple. And through the prophet
Nathan, God responds and says, “Did I ask you to build me a temple? I don’t want a temple! I prefer to be on the move with the
people.” Indeed, David never did build
the temple, though his son later did.
The holiness of God dwells with
the people. Always has, always will. God prefers it that way, in fact. If you are looking for the holiness of God,
you’ll find that the human heart is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You’ll find that the fullness of God’s
holiness was pleased to leave the splendor of heaven, to be born in human form,
and live among us in the person of Jesus.
You’ll find that we are created in the image of a holy God, and God is
restoring that holiness as we grow day-by-day in grace, through the redemption
of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The holiness of God dwells with the people,
such that Church Father St. Irenaeus said, “Man fully alive is the glory of
God.” God’s holiness is most fully
revealed and experienced in, and through, and with the people. Always has, always will.
A pattern for worship
The 6th chapter of Isaiah is the
paradigm for a centuries-old pattern of worship which includes Praise (vv.
1-3), Confession (v. 5), Pardon (vv. 6-7), and Response (v. 8). Churches the world over follow this basic pattern
in their worship gatherings, and if you look at our bulletin, you can see this
shape echoed as we sing all sorts of songs of praise, confess our sin and are
assured of God’s forgiveness, and respond to God’s goodness in a variety of
ways, including an offering of monetary gifts, a sermon, and being sent forth
into the world with our lives centered on Christ and magnifying God’s joy. This text provides a pattern for worship for
all those who have encountered the holiness of God.
The hymn we sang earlier today - Holy, Holy, Holy – could have been
lifted right out of this text and it is one of my favorites: the congregation
sang it at my mom’s funeral, the congregation sang it at mine and Ashley’s
wedding. If you don’t sing it at my
funeral, I WILL come back and haunt you!
On our wedding DVD, I go back and watch the congregation sing that hymn
two, sometimes three times before moving on to watch the rest of the worship
service because it’s so beautiful.
When voices are joined together in
songs of praise to God, something beautiful and holy takes place. As I have shared with you before, St.
Augustine said, “The one who sings once prays twice.” Music has that way of lifting us from the
here-and-now and transporting us - much like Isaiah having his temple vision -
into the nearer presence of God, where our voices are tuned as the instruments
in a symphony of constant praise to God.
And as wonderful and glorious and marvelous as worship can be in this
life, what we experience is but the tiniest foretaste of what awaits us in worship
in the life to come.
Even so, worship in this life
is best offered when we put our best into it.
When we put our heart and soul into worship, it’s amazing the way that
God transforms our hearts and souls in the process. And here’s what I know - what we get out of
worship is directly related to what we put into worship. I cannot help but think of John Wesley’s
directions for singing published in the Methodist hymnbook in 1761, and
reprinted to this day in the front of our
hymnal. In particular, I love rule #4:
“Sing lustily and with a good courage.
Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up
your voice with strength. Be no more
afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you
sung the songs of Satan.”
I think Mr. Wesley was onto
something, and I want to encourage you to take his words to heart. When the congregation sings together -
whether it is a time-honored hymn or a newer song of praise - you sing your
little heart out like your salvation depends on it. Don’t worry about whether or not you know the
tune, don’t worry about whether or not you “like” the song, don’t worry about
what your voice sounds like. Sing along,
and sing as loud as you possibly can - put everything you’ve got into worshipping
the Lord God Almighty, and I guarantee you that if you’ll pour your heart into
worship, God will give your heart back to you in better shape than it was to
begin with. Indeed, an encounter with
the Holy One always changes us.
God cares less about our reverence
for the sacred than our encounters with the holy. And so I ask again what I asked earlier –
where have you encountered what is holy?
Not what is sacred, but what is truly holy? If you encounter the Holy One, you’ll never
be the same. Thanks be to God!
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